Dec. 26. Thursday.

Mr. Brantzen call'd upon me, at one. He says that Mr. Fitzherbert and he are yet a
great Way asunder. The first Point of the Freedom of Navigation sticks. The other
Points they have agreed on, or may agree on, not being far off. Mr. F. has no Answer
from London to the Dutch Propositions.

I told him he might make himself very easy about the Freedom of navigation, for that
the English must come into it. I suspected My Lord Shelburne was maneuvring, to save
a little Pride. That he thought, it would be less humiliating to the English and less
flattering to the Dutch, to conceed that Point, to the armed Neutrality, first. I
knew it had been recommended to his Lordship by Mr. Oswald and other English Gentlemen
here, and I had seen in the English Papers, that Couriers had been sent off, from
the Secretary of States Office, to all the foreign Courts. Combining these Circumstances
together I suspected, that they had given orders to their Minister at Petersbourg
to sign the Treaty of armed Neutrality as France and Spain have done, and after this
negotiation shall be accomplished they will have no difficulty to agree with the Dutch,
for they demand no more than the Principle of the armed Neutrality.

Mr. Brantzen said this never had occurred to him, but [that he]1 thought it possible and natural.2

I gave him Mr. Higginsons Letter and Papers3 and a Copy of our Treaty, in Confidence, all but the Sep[arate] Art[icle]. He says Mr. Bourse will not do for Minister to America. He is of the wrong Side
and will not be gouté du tout.

The Duke de la Rochefoucault made me a Visit to day, and desired me to explain to
him some Passages in the Connecticut Constitution, which were obscure to him, which
I did.

Sir James Jay too came in from the Hague, full of Projects of burning Towns and making
fifty Gun Ships equal to 110 Guns Ships. I told him that this Country abounded so
much with Projects and Projectors, that there would be a Presumption and Prejudice
against him, at first blush: but he is going to the Marquis de Castries.

Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Brantzen both told me today that the C[omte] de V[ergennes] sent off a Courier to London the night before Christmas. Mr. Brantzen told me, that
he had twice seen Dr. Franklin, once at Versailles and once at Mr. Grands. That he
appeared to him heavy and inactive and that if he had been alone, America would not
have obtained such good Terms. I said he was right, for if he had been alone, We should
not at this Moment have had any Terms at all. That our Negotiation would have trained
on as heavily and confusedly as all the rest. That if his Advice and that of the C.
de V. had been followed We should now have been treating under Mr. Oswalds first Commission.
It was the Refusal of Mr. Jay and me to treat under that Commission, against the Opinion
and Advice of V. and F. that produced Mr. Oswalds new Commission, acknowledging our
Independence.

That was a noble Tryumph for You, says Mr. Brantzen.

Mr. Vaughan shew'd me, to day, a parcel of new French Books. Le Systeme naturelle,
Le Systeme moral, Le Systeme Social, Le Systeme Politique. There is one Shop tolerated
in selling forbidden Books. —Vaughan has a Brother in Philadelphia, who has written
him a long Letter about the Constitutionists and the Republicans. They have chosen
Mr. Dickinson Governor, and Mr. Mifflin into Congress.

2. On the contrary, Great Britain refused the Dutch sine qua non and contrived altogether to avoid subscribing to the principle of free navigation
as laid down by the Armed Neutrality. Owing to the indifference of France and the
intransigence of England, to mention no other circumstance, the preliminaries between
England and the Netherlands were not concluded until 2 Sept. 1783, the day before
the definitive treaties between the other powers at war were signed. The definitive
Anglo-Dutch settlement was delayed until the following May, and its terms were humiliating
to the Republic. See entry of 20 Jan. 1783, below, and, for the peace settlement { 101 } generally, Friederich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution, Baltimore, 1911, ch. 9. JA was greatly distressed by all this, as his correspondence during 1783–1784 shows,
but he found himself powerless to help his Dutch friends.

3. Not found and probably not addressed to JA. In 1785 Stephen Higginson, Boston shipmaster, merchant, and partner of JA's friend Jonathan Jackson, commenced a correspondence with JA on Massachusetts' foreign trade; see “Letters of Stephen Higginson, 1783–1804,” Amer.
Hist. Assoc, Ann. Rpt. for 1896, 1:704–841.